12 electric vehicle charging stations opened in Oman

Plan to have a total of around 40 to 50 stations in Oman by the end of the year, says official

Electric car charging points at the Holloway Road Shell station where Shell is launching its first fast electric vehicle charging station in London, Britain October 18, 2017.

REUTERS/Mary Turner

By
Staff Writer,
Muscat Daily

Muscat: In order to promote the use of electric cars in Oman, GreenParking, a one-stop shop for all parking oriented products and services, is planning to introduce more charging stations in the country.

Already 12 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations have been installed in several places including Sohar, Musannah and Muscat.

“We plan to have a total of around 40 to 50 stations in Oman by the end of the year. We plan to expand our network of charging stations for electric vehicles till Salalah,” said Sam Alawiye, CEO of GreenParking.

He was speaking at a roundtable discussion on the future of mobility and sustainable societies held on Monday at InterContinental Muscat.

The event was inaugurated by H E Najeeb bin Ali al Rawas, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs (MECA).

The event highlighted the most important strategies and challenges facing the future of electric vehicles in the sultanate.

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Addressing the gathering, H E Rawas said, “Increase in air pollution is contributing to health issues and life change. So countries around the world are implementing cleaner environment. “One such initiative is the use of electric cars. Developing and using electric cars is the first step towards contributing to reduce air pollution amongst others. These cars will be a value addition to the country.

“MECA encourages this and any initiative that minimises environmental damage and contributes to greener earth.”

GreenParking is developing a network of charging stations to power electric vehicles.

“We have already introduced a total of 250 charging stations in the UAE. Today we are inaugurating one such station at InterContinental Muscat. It can charge two cars at a time. We did the same yesterday [Sunday] night at Crowne Plaza Sohar,” Alawiye said.

He added, “In order to promote such cars amongst the masses, first we must have the infrastructure in place. That is to have a network of electric vehicle charging stations. We are now providing the network all the way from Abu Dhabi to be able to charge your car in Muscat and expand it to reach Salalah.

“We aim to encourage low and medium income population to go for this car. We are also providing the facility of free charging in our network till the end of 2019. To avail this, people must possess our charging cards which we are offering for free. People can write to us at ev@greenparking.ae to get the card.”

He said that the company is also providing an app that will show users different locations of charging stations.